Pitt, where the facts on which he bases it are at
least unproved, on those points as to which the facts are clear and
certain he condemns Fox altogether, affirming that his "attempt to show
that the crown had not the prerogative of dissolving Parliament in the
middle of a session had neither law nor precedent in its support."[106]
And he proceeds to lay down, with great clearness and accuracy, "the
practice as well as the theory of our mixed government," which is, that
"when two of the powers of the state cannot" agree, and the business of
the state is stopped, the only appeal is to the people at large. Thus,
when in the reign of Queen Anne the House of Lords and the House of
Commons fulminated resolutions at each other, a dissolution cleared the
air and restored serenity. If no case had occurred since the Revolution
of a quarrel between the crown and the House of Commons, the cause is to
be sought in the prudence with which every sovereign who had reigned
since that event had wielded his constitutional authority. If George
III. had been wanting in that prudence, it did not follow that he was
debarred from the right of appealing to the people. Any other doctrine
would invest the House of Commons, elected for the ordinary business of
the state, with a supreme power over every branch of it. This supreme
power must rest somewhere; according to our constitution it rests in the
common assent of the realm, signified by the persons duly qualified to
elect the members of the House of Commons; and Lord Russell, in thus
expounding his ideas on this subject, was undoubtedly expressing the
view that ever since the transactions of which we have been speaking has
been taken of the point chiefly in dispute. Since that day there has
been more than one instance of Parliament being dissolved in the middle
of a session; but, though the prudence of the different ministers who
advised such dissolutions may, perhaps, have been questioned--nay,
though in one memorable instance it was undoubtedly a penal dissolution
in the fullest sense of the word[107]--no one has ever accused the
sovereign's advisers of seducing him into an unconstitutional exercise
of his prerogative.

Pitt was now Prime-minister, with a degree of power in Parliament and of
popularity out-of-doors that no former minister, not even his own
father, had ever enjoyed. As such, by the confession of one who was
certainly no friendly critic,[108] "he became the greatest master of